


The Drowned Heart

by Aviss



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Fusion, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Immortals, Rough Sex, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, but neither is brienne, jaime in not all sane here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:28:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27355771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aviss/pseuds/Aviss
Summary: Two hundred years is a long time to drown.In which they are immortal, Jaimes's not had a good time of it and neither has Brienne. But now he's back and he's pissed off.Alternatively, in which the author has watched The Old Guard too many times and needs to be kept away from a keyboard.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 57
Kudos: 188





	The Drowned Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to blame ImberReader for this one, but honestly, I have nobody but myself to blame. She's just an enabler (and we love her for it)  
> I swear, this is the last The Old Guard fusion I try, but while the other was "oh some fluff and love declarations" then I had the idea of having Jaime a Quyhn and Brienne as Andy, for maximum angst available, and the idea would not go away.  
> The warnings and rating are mainly for violence, but let's be honest, both canons are very violent. I have not warned for character death because, well, immortals, it doesn't take for them but they die a few times in here, even at each other hands.  
> If I have missed some warning anyone thinks necessary, please let me know.

The door to the safe house in Storm's End's bohemian quarter, what used to be the slums but has been hit hard by gentrification in the past couple of decades, is unlocked when Brienne arrives, tired and dusty and weary to her bones. 

It's been a long month at the end of a long decade at the end of a too-long life. She just wants to sleep for a whole year.

She sighs and takes her gun from the waistband of her jeans, making sure the safety is off and double-checking the clip, mentally thanking Asha for this new bout of paranoia. She's not going to be caught again with an empty gun, not in this millennia. 

Silently, Brienne pushes the door open and, leading with her gun, enters the house feeling glad she made Lyanna stay with Doran and Garland. Reluctant as Brienne had been to be separated from her, she knows they will keep her safe and teach her everything, though Lyanna already knows plenty. She knew enough to save all of their skins barely a couple of days after meeting them, though not enough to want to hold Asha accountable for her actions. She'll learn, she has fire, plenty of fire inside of her and nowhere to direct the flame. Lyanna reminds Brienne of herself millennia ago, back when she still could hold her own gaze in the mirror and knew how to laugh. 

_Come on wench, don't keep your eyes from me. You know how much I love them._

It's not surprising Brienne has been thinking about Jaime continuously for the past weeks, not after Lyanna's dreams. Not that she hasn't thought about him every day for the past two hundred years and more, since the day they met over a thousand years ago.

She can still hear Lyanna's voice as it trembled, the house dark and quiet around them. "He keeps screaming, even as his lungs fill with water, and he dies and comes back still screaming, I think it's a word. I can still feel his rage and madness, and his loneliness. He feels so lonely, like something vital is missing." 

Lyanna had been almost in tears by the end, her voice breaking and Brienne had to leave, had to flee the safehouse while Garland explained to her how Brienne had abandoned the other half of her soul to eternal torment at the bottom of the sea for two hundred years. He wouldn't say it like that, of course, because Garland loves her, he was sure to tell Lyanna about Brienne and Jaime together for almost a thousand years, about how they loved and how they fought together through the ages. How they had been torn apart by fear and superstition and how she had spent decades searching for him to no avail. 

How she still goes back to search for him as soon as she has a chance, her little boat moored in Tarth's harbour nowadays, the cabin covered in maps of the oceanic floor and careful, painstakingly marked squares.

She hasn't covered even ten percent in the time she'd searched; the oceans are vast, and Brienne, immortal or not, is only one woman. She can't keep the entire team searching only for one man, the world needs them too much, but she can't keep from coming back to search for him. 

For as long as it takes until she finds him.

There are othet teams, of course, ones she pays for, with more technological knowledge and tools that she'd ever imagined were possible, but she keeps diving on her own because she made a promise.

That's her next stop, once she finds who triggered the alarm that's brought her all the way here. She's expecting Asha, drunk and remorseful the way she'd been when saying goodbye after her betrayal, or some local kids who got lucky. 

It's neither.

The answer is waiting for her lounging on the ratty couch, blonde curls fanned over one armrest and long legs dangling from the other. One of Jaime's arms is extended over his head, the other holding a book in front of his face, he's dressed for the current trends, a deep burgundy shirt and tight jeans that show his powerful, though underweight, physique. He drops the book to the side of the couch and looks at Brienne, his eyes so green, still so very green, and his smile a sharp mirthless slash on his face. 

Suddenly, there is not enough oxygen in the room. 

Brienne feels like she's the one drowning, her gun falling from nerveless fingers, her heart trying to beat out of her chest. 

This can't be real, she wants nothing more in this world than for Jaime to be here, still alive and with her, not alone at the bottom of the ocean while she keeps failing him, but the world is never this kind to her. 

It can't be real, no matter the pain rending her chest and crushing the breath from her lungs, Jaime can't be here.

"Hello, wench," he says, as he stands up, graceful and lithe, leaning forward until his face is a scant inch from hers. Brienne can see nothing but his eyes, so green and so angry, burning like the wildfire he hates so much. He's here, against all logic and reason, he's here and Brienne would kiss him, except there is blood bubbling from her mouth and the pain is real, not metaphorical, the blade of his sword buried in her chest. " _Miss me_?"

...

Brienne dies for the first time with a sword through her chest and an axe in her hand, fighting to keep the Andals away from her family. 

It's a futile endeavour, she knows that even as she cuts men down who dared come into her island and kill her brothers and sisters, her sons and daughters and everyone she swore to protect. 

Brienne dies for the first time cursing them until her last breath, and when she opens her eyes again she's surrounded by corpses, of both friend and foe, and fire. Her house is on fire, her entire village is, and nothing stirs but her. She screams, long and anguished, and closes her eyes again to give herself to the flames. When she opens them once more, the fire is nothing but smoke and ashes, same as her family and friends, but Brienne is still breathing, still alive. 

She doesn't know why, but crying and trying to join them served no purpose, so she stands, picks up her weapon again and follows the path of ash and blood. 

Brienne wasn't strong enough to save her people but she didn't die, she'll become strong enough to avenge them.

…

Brienne comes back to life with a gasp and a gurgle, her pierced lung still not fully repaired. 

She blinks at the ceiling and tries to push her head up, tries to look around to check that yes, it was Jaime who just killed her. Not for the first time, that, and if she remembers the fury in his eyes correctly, not for the last either. 

Brienne doesn't care, Jaime can kill her until it finally takes if that means he's really there and out of his watery coffin.

His face appears on her field of vision, a cascade of blonde curls that are just as soft and luscious as they look framing his beautiful face. He doesn't look a day older than the last time she saw him, still golden and beautiful with eyes like the deepest forest and features that have made sculptors weep. There is a statue of the Warrior in a sept in Lannisport that was modelled after Jaime, the artist furiously moaning it wasn't good enough. Brienne has gone to pray to that sept more than once before starting her searches in a new area, begging to gods she doesn't believe in that she could find him that time. 

The gods never listened, but he's here now. 

She expects his hands around her throat and another death, instead he puts one on the nape of her neck and gently helps her sit up. 

"You back with me, wench?" he asks, the same as he has done a million times when they were fighting together and she got killed, his voice then soft and full of concern sounds blank and alien now. 

Brienne wants to cry.

"Jaime," she finally manages to say, her voice choking. She extends her hands, wanting to touch him, to feel the warmth of his living body under her fingertips but Jaime steps out of her reach, not even pretending he's not doing it. Brienne clenches her hands into fists and presses them to her thighs, bowing her head.

"Uh oh, no touching, wench," he says, chiding, his voice still calm and soft while his eyes are hard as chips of ice. "I will have to kill you again, and then this conversation will take even longer." 

She looks up at him again, unable to keep her eyes from taking in every little detail and feature, drinking in the sight of him under the sun the same way she used to do it when they first got together all those years ago, marvelling at the fact that such beautiful man chose to lay with her. If she can't reassure herself he's there with her touch, she will have to do it with just her eyes. 

For as long as he lets her. 

"How?" She finally asks when they have regarded each other in silence for long enough she needs confirmation from another of her senses. 

"How did I find you?" He tilts his head and regards her curiously, a tiny frown on his face. There is something wrong in it though, as much as the gesture is achingly familiar, there is something in his eyes, in the way that he looks at her like one would a butterfly pinned to a board, nothing of the love she was used to seeing there. "That was easy, wench. _I know you_ , _I know you better than anyone else in this wretched world, better than I know myself_. I knew you'd come running if there was any threat, that you'd come on your own and not expose your new duckling to whatever danger was waiting for you."

He stands from his crouch and starts pacing in front of Brienne, the nervous energy she remembers so well coursing through him though there is an edge to his movements now, as if he has forgotten the fluidity of his body after so long stuck in his coffin. 

"I didn't know about all the modern technology and security, of course not, or all the new safehouses in pretty neighborhoods. Your lovely Asha pointed me in the right direction after some-- _convincing_. I had fully intended to use her as bait." Brienne swallows drily, hoping that Jaime, this Jaime who is in front of her and clearly out of his rational mind, hasn't hurt Asha too badly. She wasn't even with them when Jaime was taken, she would be the wrong target for his anger. As if he can still read her mind with a look Jaime sighs, long suffering and amused, something in his posture easing. "I didn't hurt her _much_ , Brienne, stop your protective mother henning. I needed to convince _her_ I wouldn't hurt _you_. You still inspire loyalty, even after you guys exiled her for a century. Harsh punishment that one" Brienne knows, she also knows they are not going to enforce it. Not the whole century. "She sent me to Tarth first, to your quaint little boat there and all those oceanic maps and followed trails. You were getting close, wench." His eyes narrow on her and his voice is brittle and sharp, all pointy edges that have Brienne gritting her teeth at their bite. " _A couple more centuries and you would have found me_."

"Jaime," she attempts because she doesn't know what else to do but to call his name and ask for forgiveness. 

"But what you want to know is how I am here, because it wasn't you who fished me out of the water," he cuts her off and crouches in front of her, placing one of his hands on her cheek, gently swiping his finger to wipe away the tear Brienne didn't notice was falling. This abrupt gentleness is even more painful than the sword was. "I was waiting for you, Brienne. Why didn't you find me? It was supposed to be you, you were supposed to find me like you've always done."

…

There are always wars in Westeros.

Brienne has learned this in her long years roaming the land, first in her little island where the Kings of old fell and rose again as Lords, later in the mainland where the sigil on your shield could easily mean life or death, depending on which lords were vying for power that decade. 

She wants to tell them of the futility of it, of how their bodies and their legacies will soon be fertilizer for the crops needed to feed the people they don't care about, but they won't listen to her anymore than they have ever listened to their people or advisors. She does what she can to fight for the smallfolk, the usual victims of their greed, and keeps away from politics and life in general, letting the centuries fall past her and keeping to herself. 

Brienne learned the price of living with others, with mortal people, the hard way.

The man she's looking for now is different, and he's the first hope she's had in too long of not being forever alone. She's dreamed of him, dreamed of a battle in the middle of the woods and a laughing golden man armoured in crimson and gold overrun by grey wolves everywhere. She's dreamed of a giant direwolf setting upon the man and tearing his throat out, the gurgling death and the screaming awakening not too different from Brienne's own experience. 

She's been following her dreams since, listening to rumours and battles and the whispers of people in inns. They say The Kingslayer was killed by the Young Wolf's beast, and they don't sound sad about that fate, though then their voices get quieter and fearful and whisper _but_ _he's not dead_. The Kingslayer's a monster, as everyone suspected for years. He's been taken to the dungeons under Riverrun, and he's been left there to rot, may the Stranger take his soul. 

Brienne heads to Riverrun, her days spent in the saddle, her nights seeing the Kingslayer die. 

They come for him most nights and they kill him, shackled and tied to a post. Defenseless. They stay and wait for the sudden awakening and the gasping breaths and the confusion in his eyes to call him a demon, and do it all over again behaving like the demons they accuse him of being, this Young Wolf's men. Men who resent the Kingslayer for killing the sons they sent to war as if they had expected glory instead of death to be the result, who resent him for the murder of their liege lord though that was his family's retaliation for his death, who hate him for his family and his arrogance and his poisonous tongue, and mostly for killing the tyrant who murdered their previous lord. 

Brienne wonders whether she's making a mistake getting him out, she has heard him admit some of the crimes they accuse him of and he doesn't sound like an honourable man, though not because the deed that gave him his name. Kingslayer, they say, as if that's the worst thing a man can be. She knows from experience some Kings deserve death.

She sneaks into the castle, winding her way unseen down half forgotten corridors and staircases until she makes it to the dungeon. He's alone, the blood from his last death still fresh over his stained clothes but otherwise he appears relaxed, leaning back against the pole he's shackled to, eyes closed and posture completely loose. 

Even if it's just an act it's a good one.

He opens his eyes when he hears Brienne's steps. "Back so soon? I don't think I'm going to stay dead tonight either, Lord Kastark, no matter how many times you try," he says, disdain dripping from each word. Then he sees her properly and he straightens as much as he can. 

Even in the dim light Brienne can see he's emaciated and filthy, covered in worse things than his own blood and yet he's terribly beautiful, his eyes the greenest she has ever seen, wide and shocked where they fall on her. 

He opens his mouth and closes it again, taking a few moments before he speaks. "I dreamed of you."

…

"I never stopped looking for you, Jaime."

He takes a step back, removing his hands from Brienne's face and she immediately misses them, their warmth and how real they felt against her skin. Jaime sits on the floor now in front of her, and pulls his knees up to rest his chin on them, eyes never leaving her. "I know, I saw your little boat, remember? It's the main reason we're talking and I haven't stuffed you into your own coffin to drown for a century."

She shudders at the idea, wanting to recoil from him, but she doesn't. He's entitled to his anger, though he wasn't the only one who suffered; she's the one who failed him, failed them both.

"It took me two days to escape from the dungeon where they had us," she says, because she needs him to know, needs him to believe in the fury and despair she had felt in that lightless hole under Harrenhal where they had kept them for a whole month, tried and burned as demons, over and over until they had realized fire would not destroy them. Not even wildfire, though Brienne had sworn to kill them all at Jaime's expression looking at the green flames. Then they had decided they drew strength from each other, and they had not been wrong. What their captors had failed to realize was that they also drew calm from each other, and once they had taken Jaime from her, once they had told her what his fate was to be, Brienne had determined to escape at all cost. "I killed my way to the Lord of the castle, but all he could tell me before he died was they had taken you to Saltpans and then thrown you to the fishes. There were no records, nothing to help me search." Her fury had given way to desperation once she realized how vast the ocean was and how little she knew. She had recalled Garland and Doran from where they were in Myr helping a rebellion, and they had rushed to her side. "Every day I went down, as deep as I could, and I searched for you. There was no light, no map, nothing but the breath that lasted less and less each time." She had never said it out loud, but knew Doran and Garland were aware that she believed she deserved to drown, to feel the same pain Jaime was feeling, that was the reason she always asked them to stay on the boat while she went down again and again.

Jaime's still looking at her with the same blank expression, though his knuckles are white where they grip his shins. "See, that's where you made the first mistake. The lord lied to you, it was Duskendale, and they sailed for three days east before they threw me overboard."

She doesn't know what she's supposed to feel at that, but she just felt weariness at knowing the futility of all those years. "I did that every day for fifty years."

"And then you gave up."

"No." Brienne shakes her head. "No. Then Asha came to us. There was a war--"

Jaime snorts in genuine amusement. "And when is there not a war?"

"--and you know how difficult the first deaths are, especially in the middle of a war if you've been captured by enemies." It had not been easy for Asha, not to trust them and not to go with them. She had reminded Brienne so much of Jaime when she met him she had taken to drink as much as she could just to blunt the memories. "I came back when she was settled but--"

There is understanding in his expression, they have always been able to read each other. 

"But there was another war for you to fight, another city to save," Jaime finished for her, still in the same posture as if he had become a statue. It was such a sharp contrast from the frantic pacing from before it might as well be a different man. "Another immortal to fill in the empty spaces."

"No," Brienne shakes her head, vehement. "Never that." She wants to try and touch him again, but he's said not to so she clenches her fists until her palms ache and her fingers protest. "I kept going back, and later--"

"I know, Brienne," he admits, leaning forward and loosening the grip he has on his legs. "I know about all the money you throw at research and all the oceanic expeditions you fund, as I said, Asha has been very vocal in your defense and I have been in your boat. I know you kept looking for me." He smiles then and it reminds her that this is not the Jaime she remembers, that all the time he's spent dying has given him sharper edges than she knows. "All that effort wasted just to have been picked by chance by treasure hunters."

He's not all sane, but then again, neither is she.

They can't be after so many years and so much blood.

"Did you--"

"Yes, I killed them all," he says, unconcerned. "They weren't you, after all. Imagine their surprise that the dead guy from the steel coffin was so well preserved, but that wasn't as surprising as when I opened my eyes. I would feel more sorry for them had their first instinct not been to fill me with lead the moment I stood up. What a great invention, guns." Brienne opens her mouth to say something, her usual scruples at taking unnecessary lives rearing up again, when Jaime starts to laugh. It's not crazed one from before but the one from her memories and dreams, rich peals of laughter falling from his mouth while his eyes sparkle and his shoulders shake. His eyes soften when he looks at her as he laughs, mouth curling up on a smile. "You haven't changed at all, wench, you were about to say something about killing innocents, am I right?"

"I--"

"Of course you were, because you wouldn't be you otherwise." He leans forward, crawling to where she is watching him warily, almost expecting to be killed again. "Never change, Brienne. I have missed you so much."

That's when he kisses her.

This is such a bad idea. There are two centuries of nightmares and broken promises between the two of them, this can only complicate things even more but Brienne can no more not kiss him back than she could stop the tides. 

This is worth another death.

… 

They fall into each other fifteen years after they start travelling together. 

They have left Westeros, with their eternal warring and all reminders of Jaime's family and the atrocities they are committing to cling to their power, for the wide expanses of Essos. 

They are in Braavos when Jaime last tries to kill Brienne, his health fully restored after his captivity and his mood sour and distrustful. He followed her out of Riverrun eagerly enough, though he quickly changed his thanks for insults and fights once he realized they weren't going to go South.

"You're dead, get that through your thick head, _you are dead_ ," Brienne says, exasperated, the fifth time she has to drag him away from the port where he's trying to board a ship bound for King's Landing again. "People know you're dead and they were calling you a demon already in the taverns all across that land. We need to be somewhere people don't know you." Or hate you, she doesn't add because she isn't cruel by nature and she has the feeling he'll just wrap all that hatred around himself like armour and keep trying to escape from her.

"Cersei would never, she loves me. I have to get back to her." He fixes Brienne with the most disdainful look he can, as if that's going to intimidate her. She has faced Kings and dragons, she killed one even as she burned, one angry man, even an immortal one, is not much of a challenge. "But of course, a creature such as you would not have been loved, so what would you know?" The loss of her family was too long ago and still painful, and Brienne's not able to keep that off her face quick enough. "Oh, so you have been married then, wench? Did he leave you when he realized you were a monster? He must have known with just a look at your face."

"He was killed by the same people who killed me and my children," she grits out, finally out of patience enough to give him the fight he so badly wants. Jaime's as surprised to be unable to best Brienne in a sword fight as he was the first time he tried, and she would have laughed at his outraged expression if she wasn't furious and weary. She had thought she might get a companion after so long alone, instead she's got an egotistical child who doesn't want to be with her but will end up worse than dead if left on his own. "You're a few centuries too young to kill me," she tells him when he comes back to life.

That doesn't mean he doesn't try again.

They are in Pentos when Jaime stops insulting and antagonizing her, his sullen anger turned into resignation on hearing the news of Queen Cersei's last atrocity. 

"Wildfire, it had to be wildfire," he mutters after the second flagon of wine is gone, eyes unfocused and far away. Brienne says nothing, just lets him ramble about his relationship with his sister and his relationship with wildfire, both of them terrible and defining. 

He doesn't mention going back to Westeros for the next century.

They are in Lys, surrounded by beautiful and colourful people and making their living as sell-swords, when Jaime kisses her for the first time. 

They are drunk and clumsy on their way back to their little house, stumbling along the narrow streets and laughing loudly for no real reason but that they are drunk and clumsy. 

It's been years since they started travelling together, years since Jaime's animosity turned into reluctant respect and then friendship. Years in which they had become each other's confidant and best friend and anchor. It's not enough, not for Brienne who knows she loves Jaime and will love him for many years to come, but she's not a wide-eyed youth. She knows what she looks like and what he looks like, and though it's not something she cares about she knows he does. He used to call her ugly and a monster, he might have learned to love her, but that doesn't mean he desires her. 

She doesn't lack for companions to spend the night anyway, not in Lys where her skill attracts more than enough people of either sex. Some night she even takes some of them up on their offer, ignoring the way he glares when she leaves him and coming back to the home they share feeling sated and empty at the same time.

Tonight she has received no offers, Jaime's kept her attention focused only on him, not that it's a hardship. Jaime's hair is a short bright green that makes his eyes look unreal, following the Lysenne style, but his beard is still gold, perfectly trimmed to make his jawline look even more impressive. He was eager to try the silly hairstyle the moment they arrived, shedding the blond Lannister look he had treasured his entire life; the break from his sister, his mirror, evident in the gesture. He looks unjustly beautiful like that and Brienne's not the only one who thinks that judging by the accolades he always has following him. Surprisingly enough, he's never taken a lover while travelling with her. 

Brienne's not coloured her hair, but she's wearing it braided and long in the style of Dothraki horse lords, her reputation allowing her to wear their leathers and braid without being challenged or looking silly. Jaime had looked at her appreciatively the first time she donned them, axe strapped to her back and braid, sans bells, over her shoulder. 

They're almost at the house when Jaime trips over his own feet and Brienne grabs him to keep him steady, one hand splayed over his belly, the other holding his arm. She pulls him tight against herself, the other choice is both of them tumbling arse over tit to the coblestones, and she starts laughing at his outraged expression when he turns his head to look at her. 

His eyes, unfocused at first, sharpen and move down to her mouth and Brienne expects a comment about how drunk they are, or about her braying laugh waking up the entire street, instead Jaime twists in her hands and puts his hands against her chest. He pushes her and Brienne lets herself be moved until her back is to a wall, still laughing until the breath is taken completely from her lungs by his mouth, hot and hard against hers, and his hands pin her to the wall as if preventing her from escaping.

Suddenly feeling very sober, Brienne pulls back from him, head hitting the wall behind her

"What are you doing, Jaime?" She asks, her voice barely a whisper. She wants him, has wanted him for a long time, but can't risk the friendship they have built for just a quick drunk fuck, no when they are facing eternity with only each other as companion. "You know you don't want me."

"You, wench, are the most infuriating woman in the entire world," he grows against her mouth, and he doesn't sound drunk either. He presses his body against her. "Does this feel like not wanting you?"

It doesn't. "You're drunk."

"I'm not." She narrows her eyes at him. "Not drunk enough I don't know what I'm doing," he amends at her look. 

"Then why? You've been irritating me and insulting me for years. Why decide now you want me?" 

It's his turn to narrow his eyes at her. "Have I? Have I insulted you in these past few years since Pentos? Have we fought, have I tried to kill you again since then? Or have I been doing everything to catch your attention, only to have you deflect and then fuck someone else while I waited at home? I know you want me, _wench_ ," She can hear it now, for the first time. That old insult he liked but the fondness in his voice and the breath tickling her face make it feel more endearment than anything. "Is it that hard to believe I want you as well?"

She can remember now those times when he would play with her braid, eyes intent on her, voice low and the words something she can't even remember. How she had always taken a lover those nights to prevent the temptation of reaching for him, unable to face him if he were to pull back from her.

She reaches for him now, and Jaime goes eagerly.

…

They fuck there, on the floor of the safehouse with the sun streaming through the windows and Brienne's back uncomfortably scraping against the floor. 

Jaime's mouth is too hard on Brienne's, his fingers on her skin are too rough and his bites too sharp and painful, they still are the best thing she has felt in her long, long life. She winds her limbs around him and presses him ever tighter against her body, opens her legs so he can settle between them and breathes him in. His smell is almost the same she remembers, woodsy and sweeter than one would expect from such as him, though there is something briny and salty in it now, in his hair, as if the centuries underwater have seeped into his pores and become part of him. 

She doesn't know how their clothes get discarded, just that at one moment she's clothed and then they are skin to skin and it's the most maddening feeling, the slide of his cock against her cunt, just rubbing there while they kiss and kiss and kiss.

"Jaime," she keens, tilting her hips up, silently begging him to hurry up and fuck her. 

"You are desperate for it, wench," he pants against her mouth, still with the same teasing motion, his fingers digging on her wrists where he has them pressed against the floor, restraining her movement. She wants to touch him but can still remember what he said when she tried before. "How long has it been for you?"

"Two hundred years," Brienne answers breathlessly, uncaring of how much that reveals. It doesn't cross her mind to lie, not to Jaime. 

He stops, freezing on top of her, his eyes impossibly wide as they look at her, then he releases her wrists though she doesn't move them, and grabs her hair, kissing her desperately and hungrily, pulling at her hair and grinding down hard enough she wants to whimper in a mixture of pain and frustration. He's pushing inside of her in the next heartbeat, too quick and rough and just about the most perfect thing she's ever felt, Brienne crosses her legs over his hips and pushes up to meet his thrusts, and claws at his back with desperate hands the moment Jaime pulls away from her mouth to say "You can touch me now."

She touches him, all the skin she can reach under her fingertips, her lips pressed to his neck, his jaw, his mouth and still it's not enough, she wants him under her skin so he can't be taken from her again, wants him to have never left, wants him inside of her forever so of course it's over too quick, his thrusts quicker and harder, frantic until she feels him come inside or her, her own climax not even an afterthought. 

He drops next to her to catch her breath and they lay on their sides facing each other the way Brienne had always liked, not touching but close enough that they could be with just the barest of movements. They always run too hot when they are together, the distance necessary to cool off after making love has always felt like a blessing, she can look at him like this as much as she wants to, look at his hair tangled from her fingers and his lips swollen from her kisses, his entire body golden and sheened in sweat, and his dark eyes that turn again to that forest green she finds so enchanting. 

And his smile, the one that is just for her and has always made Brienne feel like she swallowed some fireflies, even after centuries of seeing it.

There is no smile this time, just heaving breaths in the otherwise silent room, and Brienne's eyes sting and her lips tremble because that is the thing she has missed the most, his smile. She closes her eyes tightly to prevent her tears from falling. 

Jaime's hand presses against her cheek, the gentlest touch he's bestowed today. 

"Hey, no," he says, his voice so soft she would not hear it if they were not so close. "Don't keep your eyes from me. You know how much I love them."

Brienne swallows harshly and opens her eyes, Jaime just a blur through her tears. 

…

Brienne comes to in a dank and dark dungeon that's becoming irritatingly familiar, her head screaming in pain for a moment. She opens her eyes, vision blurry with tears of pain as her cranium reforms itself with an almost audible pop, her teeth gritted so hard she would have broken them had she been anyone else. 

There is a shape in front of her that resolves itself into Jaime, already awake, his green eyes shining with fury. 

"Wench, are you back with me?" he asks, and she knows him well enough to hear the thread of panic in his voice. 

"I'm here."

He sighs in relief, some tension leaving his frame. "You took too long to come back, I thought you had left me here alone."

Brienne takes stock of him, he appears to have been back for longer than she, he's already manacled to the wall next to her, whatever ill fitting rags their captors have put over them grimmier and more disgusting than the previous ones. She would have expected that they'd know by now to disrobe them before burning them, but Brienne doesn't know what these puritanical assholes find more offensive, Jaime's beauty or Brienne's ugliness. The result is the same, they get burned with their garments on, as if their nudity offends, and covered with whatever filthy piece of cloth they have at hand until their next burning. 

"Never," Brienne says, because it's one of the things she knows in the marrow of her bones. For as long as she has breath, she won't leave Jaime alone, and she has been drawing breath for a long time and intends to do it for as long as Jaime does. 

"We have to get out of here, I don't want to keep seeing them kill you," Jaime says, voice harsh. She knows how he feels because she feels the same way. 

They were careless, that's the only explanation she has as to how they ended up in the situation they are currently in. The contract had looked easy; a small village outside of Harrenhall castle, the rumours that some of the girls from the village had been accused of sorcery and taken by the lord of the castle. Usually, these kind of rumours meant someone in the castle was abusing the girls, they had seen it time and time before, and it was the kind of job they could do in their sleep, so they had sent Garland and Doran to Myr to investigate another request, and they had gone on to Harrenhall. 

They had been so wrong. It wasn't the lord of the castle taking advantage of young girls, it was the entire village who saw demons and witches everywhere. They had asked the wrong question to the wrong person, just a girl barely in her teens, but it had earned Jaime a slit throat and Brienne a knife to the back. When they came back to life, they cemented the village's paranoia and there had been nothing even the two of them could do against an entire village unless they wanted to cut them down to the last child. 

Now Brienne is regretting her scruples, she would gladly kill all of them if that meant she didn't have to hear Jaime's screams as he burns ever again. 

"We'll get out of here," she says, and hates their captos more than anything for chaining them close but not enough they can touch or kiss, not close enough they can comfort each other in that way, and that is also a form of torture for them. 

They try to overpower their captors when they come for them next, but only succeed in making them kill them there, in the cell still chained like beasts, and they are dragged to the stake while still not fully conscious. They try again after burning, but it's a slow recovery when the death is so traumatic, and their fate doesn't change. Brienne knows they have time, sooner or later Doran and Garland will get back to their safe house and look for them, get them out if they haven't managed to free themselves but she can't wait for a rescue, not like this.

And then one day, they don't unchain her. 

"You demons are powerful together," the lord says staring at Brienne with narrowed eyes. "If we can't send you back to hell, then we'll just have to bury you as far away from each other as you can be." He gestures to the men outside and they come in and unchain Jaime, not even looking at her. The realization of what he intends sinks slowly, but when it does she starts fighting like a madwoman, same as Jaime. He struggles and screams, his panicked eyes on Brienne as they drag him out and Brienne can see it, just outside the door, a metal coffin and a long coil of chain. 

"No!" she screams, her manacles digging cruelly against her wrists, making her bleed, his screams echoing in her head even as the door closes and plunges her into darkness again. "No, Jaime! I'll find you, Jaime, wait for me. I'll find you!"

...

Jaime stands up and finds his clothes long after the tears have dried on Brienne's face and the sweat has completely evaporated from her skin. She can feel the uncomfortable itchiness of his come where it's dried on her skin and she wants a shower desperately, but she doesn't want to miss even one second of his presence.

She can also see the ghost of his fingers around her wrists and feel the tenderness of her lips where his kisses have bruised them, and knows the reminders of him will be useful once he's gone and she wonders again whether this is a dream.

She knows why he's leaving and can't blame him. 

"I'm not alright, Brienne," Jaime told her a few minutes before, his fingers brushing the tears from her eyes as they fell. "I still want to kill you almost as much as I want to wrap myself around you and never let go of you again. Two hundred years is a long time to die, I'm sure some part of me is still down there, still choking for breath and wondering where you are."

She's the one choking for breath now, but she's not going to make it harder for him, it's enough to know that he's out and living again, and that though he hasn't forgiven her for failing him, he wants to. 

Brienne watches him step into his trousers, foregoing his underwear which didn't survive her eagerness to get him naked, then put his shirt on and comb his fingers through his hair, trying to get it into some semblance or order. He turns back to her and eyes her naked form appreciatively. 

"That is one way you can make me stay, wench," he says with a teasing smile, but she can see the tension creeping back into his shoulders and the coldness seeping into his eyes. 

Brienne pushes herself up on her elbows to see him better. "Will I see you again?" she asks instead of asking him to stay. 

"Of course you will, wench, I don't think I can stay away from you forever." He looks at her with some chagrin. "I might kill you again when I do."

"I don't mind," Brienne says, it's the truth. "As long as you kiss me again when I come back."

Jaime closes the distance between them in two quick strides and kneels next to her, hands tangling on her head as he presses their lips together. This kiss is the kind she remembers, the kind they have shared a million times just because they could. It's gentle and sweet, a slow exploration of her mouth, his tongue probing and teasing, and so very arousing. He kisses her, and kisses her until they both run out of breath, and then puts their foreheads together and the look in his eyes is so full of love she wants to cry again. 

"I will always kiss you again." Jaime steps back from her and stands slowly. "I think I'm going to look for your Asha, keep her company and teach her all the good tricks you and the wholesome duo didn't think to teach her."

"She's from Pike, Jaime," Brienne says, her voice still strangled with all the things she wants to say instead. "Trust me, she knows those tricks."

"Still, she will be good company, and a hundred years is too long to be alone." 

Brienne knows, she's glad they will have each other during that time. "Yes, it is."

He's at the door when he turns back to look at her. "Don't wait a hundred years then. Find me, wench. I'll be waiting for you. Find us."

"I will," Brienne tells the closed door before letting herself fall back to the floor and close her eyes. "This time I will find you."

...


End file.
